Reto is well known in the community as a master of the UCS-scale, which basically means that he is great at building realistic replicas of the ships from the movies. Check out his UCS gallery for more examples of that.

Hey all! There have been a pretty good output of nice models during the holidays – in addition to spending time with family and friends, it seems people are taking the time to finish old projects. A good thing! Lets start by taking a look at Adrian Drake’sThomas E. Dewey, the steam powered airship:

Have you ever wanted a nice display stand for your minifigs that doesn’t say “Star Wars” or “Sports” on it? Tim Gould (aka “Gambort”) has developed a great brick-built solution, complete with a slot in which to put a paper backdrop:

Click the image to go to Tim’s Brickshelf gallery, where you can download a PDF containing instructions.

2007 will be the Year of the Boar. Of course, tigers eat boars for breakfast, so I’m thinkin’ it’ll be a good year.

As I explained on New Years Day 2006, Japanese homes begin to fill up with new years cards — called nengajyou — this time of year.

I assume we’ll see lots of boar-themed LEGO creations over the next week or so, but mumu gets things rolling with the first new years card. According to his blog post, he created a LEGO boar that LEGO/graphic design site 05cube! has integrated into a nice DIY card-maker. Here’s mine (note personalized message to our beloved readers):

Click my card to go to 05Cube! and make your own. There are enough English instructions that you should be able to get by. :) Just leave a comment here if you have any trouble.

Sometimes the best little creations are the ones that can fit in the palm of your hand, as lego2000 of Classic-Castle.com shows with his Space Containers. Check out this thread for discussion on how these neat little containers were built.

Today my copy of “The Unofficial Lego Sets/Parts Collectors Guide” finally came in the mail and it was definitely worth the wait.

Gary Istok has spent a lot time and effort on this CD and it shows. There are over 1,000 pages of wonderful Lego information. So much information that I don’t know if I will ever be able to read it all!

But the nice thing is that you don’t have to. Gary has divided the CD into multiple .pdf files with an excellent Table of Contents. It is very easy to find exactly the information you need. This work will be a significant resource in the Lego community for years to come.

Have a look at Mr. Istok’s website. There are sample pages and chapters. You can also check out the full Table of Contest as well.

2007 catalog scans are available on 1000steine.de, with pictures of previously unseen summer-release City sets (click to go to the page on 1000steine.de and view full-size images):

Czech LEGO fan site Kostky also has a picture of the new Castle sets for 2007 (via Eurobricks):

I’m very excited about the undead horses, new skeletons (with non-floppy arms) and new accessories (curved swords, round shields, etc.). I can’t tell too much about the castles from this picture, but I like the bone cage on the undead fortress. Wicked!

The thing I like so much about micro-mecha is that they’re built of tons of tiny pieces. Vaughan James’ recent mecha illustrates this nicely, following in the footsteps of master micro mecha builders like zizy2 and Squieu.